Carol Midgley: Ditch the chafing Lycra! Workout DVDs are a con

In the 1980s, like many females, I suffered a brief but embarrassing addiction. Once a day and sometimes twice I would don legwarmers and a crotch-chafing leotard and do the entire Jane Fonda workout, feeling “the burn” in places that you really shouldn’t. But soon I realised that crashing around my mum’s living room sporting camel-toe and a badly fitting bra wasn’t achieving much and was actually very boring. Not shovelling down Toffee Crisps and cheese on toast was, amazingly, a much more effective way to shed fat.

So it is with no regret at all that I report that some modern celebrity fitness DVDs may be misleading and — shock, horror — a bit of a “sham”. Apparently some of the D-listers knocking out fitness videos…